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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25729318">waking up to ash and dust</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield'>thelilacfield</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there is no world where i am not yours [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:06:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25729318</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"We both know you're a lot less likely to get yourself killed on the road than I am. Please. They asked me to give them my best person and that's you."</p><p>"Flattery will get you nowhere, Quill. Why is it so important to get this guy to the Fireflies anyway? Surely they have enough soldiers for their wars without grabbing up people just trying to get by."</p><p>"He's immune."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Wanda Maximoff/Vision</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>there is no world where i am not yours [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>waking up to ash and dust</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><strong>A/N:</strong> Day five of AU-gust (which kinda turned into a <em>Last of Us</em> AU even though I've never played the game)! And you can read more about the challenge and see what else is coming <strong><a href="https://augustwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/post/621653119656493056/the-list-of-prompts-was-completed-one-prompt-per#notes">here</a></strong>!</p><p>Please leave a comment if you enjoy this fic! I'm on tumblr and twitter <strong>@ mximoffromanoff</strong> if anyone wants to chat!</p><p><strong>Warnings: </strong>violence, past death of family members</p><hr/><p>"No."</p><p>"Oh come <em>on</em>, Red."</p><p>"<em>No</em>. You should've known before you asked me. <em>No</em>."</p><p>Peter leans back in his chair, curling his fingers around the neck of his beer bottle. She wonders exactly what he had to trade to get that. It's been months since she saw any alcohol being passed around, and she wonders what the occasion is for him to have gone to so much effort to get it. "I don't know anyone else I can ask, Red."</p><p>"You know I run alone, Quill," she says, and he sighs. "I never joined your ragtag band of post-apocalyptic misfits for a <em>reason</em>. I'm only here for a week before I move on."</p><p>"Wanda, <em>please</em>-"</p><p>"Do it yourself if you need it done so badly," she says, and Peter's face collapses, desperation written in every line wrought by living in their world.</p><p>"I <em>can't</em>," he says, and she folds her arms across her chest, arching an eyebrow at him. He takes a slug of beer and sighs before he says, "Gamora's pregnant."</p><p>"Oh." She stares across the table at her friend. Or perhaps the nearest person who is convenient to talk to. The leader of his gang of misfits, protecting the city and acting as some white knight for the many people who have stuck to cities as a safer place than the wilds. Now, apparently, an expectant father. "Congratulations?"</p><p>"I'm gonna be a father in a few months," he says, and even through exhaustion there's a hidden joy in his eyes. The kind of happiness that's so rarely seen. "I can't go and get myself killed."</p><p>"So you expect <em>me</em> to go and get myself killed?" she snaps, bristling, and a slight smile quirks the corners of his mouth.</p><p>"We both know you're a lot less likely to get yourself killed on the road than I am," he says, and she tamps down the bloom of pride in her chest. She's still angry with him for asking so much of her. "Please. They asked me to give them my best person and that's you."</p><p>"Flattery will get you nowhere, Quill," she says. "Why is it so important to get this guy to the Fireflies anyway? Surely they have enough soldiers for their wars without grabbing up people just trying to get by."</p><p>"He's immune."</p><p>She blinks at him once. Twice. Three times. His face doesn't change. No twitch betrays that he might be lying. And she shakes her head and curls her lip over the words, "No one's immune. If you're trying to get me to do you a favour at least make the reason sound plausible."</p><p>"I saw him get bitten," Peter says, hollows shadowing his eyes for a moment. "We got attacked when we first met him outside the city. One of them got to us and bit him before Nebula put it down. And he didn't change. It was crazy."</p><p>"Sounds it," she says. "Too crazy to be true."</p><p>"Then come with me," Peter says. "Come meet him. You'll see the scar. He's been in the city two weeks. Even the slowest infection should've taken hold by now."</p><p>"Give me that," she says, holding out a hand. And he hands her the bottle. She gulps the rest of the beer down, the taste lingering at the back of her throat, before she says, "Fuck it. Against my better judgement, I'll meet this so-called immune guy."</p><p>"Thank you."</p><p>"I am making no promises that I'll take him to the Fireflies," she says.</p><p>But so help her, once she follows Quill to the little house he and Gamora live in at the edge of the city, she finds a man sitting on their couch. Vision shows her the bite mark on the inside of his wrist, the wound that should have turned him into a zombie within hours of those teeth sinking into his flesh. But he still stands in front of her completely lucid. Completely human. A slight surge of hope that maybe they might be able to put the world back to what it used to be. That they could cure the poor people running around infected.</p><p>And when nightfall comes, she's sneaking Vision past the patrols at the edge of the city and out into the wilds.</p><hr/><p>The wilds are submitting to the creep of winter, the nights getting longer and the air getting colder. Red and gold leaves shiver on skeletal branches, and she ghosts her fingertips over the reassuring shape of the knife tucked into her belt. Vision creeps along behind her, snapping twigs beneath his heavy feet that sound like gunshots in the undisturbed silence, and she finally turns around and snaps, "You don't know anything about being out here, do you?"</p><p>He blinks at her with those distractingly pretty blue eyes, hangs his head and quietly says, "No. I always lived in compounds. I wasn't part of the patrols."</p><p>"So Quill handed me a dangerous mission with someone who doesn't even know what they're doing out here. Great." She sighs, pulls out the small knife tucked into her boot, and holds it out to him. "Do you at least know what you're doing with one of these?"</p><p>"I can defend myself," he says petulantly, and she raises an eyebrow. "I <em>can</em>. What, you think a compound is a perfect life? There's still disputes, and people reach for their weapons more than their words these days."</p><p>"Don't preach at me about violence, Vision, I've lived in the wilds for <em>years</em>," she says. The knife in her hand is now pointed accusingly at him, and there's a shadow of fear in his eyes. This is the reputation she clings to, the reputation she's worked so hard to cultivate. The only person stupid enough to live permanently in the wilds. Sneaking into cities under cover of night for supplies and leaving by morning. Never tied into one place by anyone or anything.</p><p>"I wasn't <em>preaching</em>-"</p><p>"I'm doing this as a favour to Quill, because he's been good to me in the past," she says, every word a hammer blow. "I'm doing this for my friend who is about to have a family and can't risk his life. But make no mistake, Vision - I hate the Fireflies. I don't want to take you to them. I don't want to risk my life. But if this is part of the greater good and something in you can help people, then I'll do it."</p><p>She turns on her heel and stalks down the path, further into the shelter of the woods. He's still tripping after her, she can hear him rustling leaves and snapping twigs, and finally his voice rings out in the silence. "Why do you hate the Fireflies?"</p><p>"The Fireflies killed my parents." It echoes in the silence that always lingers after she tells anyone this. She remembers that her uneasy friendship with Quill almost came to a premature end when she told him what the Fireflies did to her family.</p><p>"But the Fireflies want to help-"</p><p>"That's what they tell everyone, and idiots like you believe them," she snaps, and there's silence behind her. "All they want is to be on top. They'll step over anyone in the way."</p><p>"But...what <em>happened</em>?" She glances back over her shoulder at him, bumbling helplessly through the wilds.</p><p>She lifts her gaze to the sky and curses the very name of Peter Quill. Then she turns back, presses her spare knife into his hand and says, "I'll tell you when you stop snapping twigs everywhere you step. We're going to get killed if you keep this up."</p><p>"I'm <em>trying</em>-"</p><p>"Try harder."</p><hr/><p>Winter comes creeping up like a shadow at sunset, and the cold is worse than ever. They barely see another living creature, and Wanda starts to keep a closer eye on Vision. He's too thin, but he won't tell her that he's suffering in the cold. He keeps walking after her, through the derelict towns and villages, until she turns and says, "There's going to be a snowstorm. We should find somewhere to bunk down for a few days."</p><p>"How do you know?" he asks through chattering teeth, and she looks up at the sickly yellow tinge to the sky.</p><p>"You live out in the wilds long enough, you learn how to spot the weather," she says, and pulls a pair of gloves from her pack. Thick, good-quality gloves that cost her an entire box of bullets in a trade. "Come on. One more town, and we'll find somewhere. I know a place, it's just a few more miles."</p><p>Inky night comes and drips away into a watery winter dawn. The peaked roofs of the village are coming into sight when her head whips towards the trees, and she puts a hand up to stop Vision. He comes stumbling to a stop and she puts a finger to her lips before he opens his mouth to speak. In the silence, she hears the slight growling, and her hand is immediately on her pistol.</p><p>One of the creatures comes shambing out of the trees. And maybe it hasn't even spotted them yet. Maybe it wouldn't, if Vision didn't stumble slightly. If the twig didn't snap beneath his foot and cause the creature's glazed yellow gaze to turn directly towards him.</p><p>Then it runs. A blur of grey limbs and pointed teeth, knocking him to the ground before he can so much as scream, its teeth at his shoulder, the sound of tearing flesh. And her bullet cracking the silence, the creature squealing and twitching. Vision pushing it off him to die on the ground, the blood already blooming out across his shirt, soaking through layers of clothes.</p><p>"Can you walk?" she asks brusquely, and he nods. He's pale, shaking, but he struggles to his feet. Then he sways, and she reaches to grab him, pulling a spare shirt from her pack and bundling it up, pressing it hard into his bitten shoulder. "Keep pressure on that. The gunshot will have attracted more of them, okay? We have to get to the town. Can you hold on that long?"</p><p>"I can do it," he says, his voice faint and twisted through teeth gritted with pain.</p><p>"Good," she says, pulling her pack tight over her shoulders. "Keep your knife out. And keep up."</p><p>She sprints over the last hill towards the village, her heart pounding and her breath coming in painful jerks. She can hear Vision behind her, his heavy footfalls, and tries not to focus on him, keeping her senses open for more of the creatures. Another low growl, and she puts on another burst of speed into the village. Vision is a slower runner than her, and she's at the door, scrabbling the rusty lock open and listening for anything inside. Nothing but dust and shadow and silence.</p><p>Then a scream behind her. She turns back and one of the creatures has caught up with Vision, no doubt drawn to him by the scent of blood. It has a hand around his pack, pulling him back, and for a moment something whispers that she could leave him. She could let them tear him apart. But her hand still rises, still and sure on her gun, and she shoots.</p><p>When Vision makes it to the door, she drags him inside and shuts it. Locks it. Shoves a table across to barricade them in. Then she says, "There's a generator in the basement. I'm going down to boot it up. Unpack everything so we can take inventory of what we have for a few days stuck here."</p><p>"Thank you." She looks up at him, adrenaline still coursing through her blood, her heart still pounding. And he looks at her like she's some kind of saviour, his eyes wide and bright. "You saved my life. Twice."</p><p>"I just-"</p><p>"I know you don't like me," he says, and she tries not to let the shame flood through her. "I know you resent having to do this. You could've let those...those <em>things</em> tear me apart. But you didn't." And he gives her a small smile like a shard of sunlight. "Thank you."</p><p>She stares at him for a second before she turns away in silence. Leaves him unpacking their bags to go down to the dank basement and find the generator so they can have light and hot water.</p><p>The way her chest contracts when he smiles at her has no place in the world she lives in. The life she's crafted for herself.</p><hr/><p>The snowstorm hits just like she thought it would. Watching the door to the little house they're staying in while Vision sleeps, she sees it start, the tiny white wisps spiralling down from the pale clouds. By the time Vision is awake, stumbling around the unfamiliar house to find food for breakfast, the ground is blanketed in sparkling white and she's wistfully thinking of what she remembers from before. Happy family days in the snow, laughing and companionship. Something that feels like it was a part of someone else's life these days.</p><p>Vision curls himself down next to her on the second day of the storm. The generator has needed restarted three times in three hours, and she's starting to think they might have to give up on the idea of electricity. She has a lighter in her hand, a gold box with the initials <em>D.M</em> engraved into its side, and she's flicking the tiny bruised flicker of flame on and off. Then Vision nudges a chipped mug towards her, steaming curling up from the surface of the tea, and when she looks at him he gives her a sad sort of smile. "I thought you might be cold," he says.</p><p>"Thank you," she says, the words stilted in her mouth. It's been a long time since anyone has done anything for her.</p><p>"I'll take watch tonight," he says. "You should get a decent night's sleep."</p><p>"No, it's alright, I like the watch," she says. And he gives her such a piercing look that she says, "I don't sleep very well. I haven't in a long time."</p><p>"Since the Fireflies killed your parents?" He asks it so boldly, and she finds herself nodding. He shifts on the floor, stretching out his long legs across the dusty floor, and asks, "Will you tell me what happened?"</p><p>"I...I don't think there's much to the story," she says, and he still looks at her, his gaze steady. So she sighs, tucks her legs beneath her, and clutches the hot mug of tea to her chest as she says, "I was ten when the first cases of the virus happened. We lived in a big city, and my father got us out as fast as he could. We were some of the lucky ones who made it out. He had a friend who owned this cabin in the mountains, and he drove us there. The friend...didn't make it. But he made it like a game, even though me and my brother were old enough to know something bad was happening."</p><p>She remembers it all clear as day, even though it was ten years ago. The way the sun shone through the trees and shimmered in the lake, her mother fretting, her father reassuring them that everything would be okay. She played with his lighter then too, flipping the flame on and off to keep her hands busy. It comes back to her far too easily as the story spins from her lips. "Then the Fireflies came. They'd seen the house from the road and wanted to use it as a base. My father told them no, that he didn't believe that they were really trying to do good, and he wanted to keep the house as a place where we would be safe. He knew about what they were doing in the cities, rationing the food and weapons even worse than the government. He knew all they really wanted was power." Her voice goes dull when she says, "They beat him to death. When my mother tried to stop them, they shot her."</p><p>When she turns to look at him, there's a sheen of tears in his eyes, and he whispers, "Wanda...Wanda I'm <em>so</em> sorry."</p><p>"He told me and my brother to hide when he saw them coming," she says. "Even after they left, I was too afraid to come out. I hid under a bed all night, until my brother came to find me. He said we couldn't stay, so we made our way to the city. We lived on the streets and got by, and then...we tried to get to a compound. We tried. But the creatures found us, and he got bitten. He stood in front of me and he begged me to shoot him so he wouldn't become one of them. I did, and then I...I killed every last one of those things."</p><p>"<em>Wanda</em>-"</p><p>"So that's why I run alone," she says. "That's why I live in the wilds instead of in the cities. I won't live somewhere the Fireflies are. I'd rather be alone than...than lose someone again."</p><p>"But you don't deserve to be alone," he says softly. "None of it was your fault. We...we live in a messed up world." He takes a deep breath and says, "You don't have to take me to the Fireflies. I...I can make it there."</p><p>"You were nearly torn apart two days ago," she says, and her eyes slant to the bulk of the bandage on his shoulder. "Let me see. The bandages probably need changed."</p><p>After years of treating her own wounds, flipping her first aid kit bag open is second nature. It's all instinct. At least until Vision unbuttons his shirt and folds it aside, and she's confronted by his pale bare chest. He has less scars than she does, and for a moment her mouth is dry. Then she forces her attention onto the mess of his shoulder as she unwraps the bandages, reaching for the remnants of a jar of anti-bacterial rub. They'll get nowhere if he gets infected before they make it to the Fireflies.</p><p>He seems to hold his breath when she touches him, and when their eyes meet the electricity between them is so strong she looks away. She stares resolutely at her own fingers on his skin as she says, "I don't want to be the person who knew that there could be a cure and didn't help to find it. I'll take you to the Fireflies. But after that, I'm leaving. You probably won't see me again."</p><p>"But what if I want to?" She looks up at him, his eyes focused entirely on her. Her hand is on his chest, her fingertips grazing a line down his skin, and there's heat flickering between them, the air heavy with tension.</p><p>She kisses him first. He hisses in pain when he moves to wrap his arms around her, and the tiny glass jar of ointment rolls away across the floor when she threads her hands into his hair and pulls him down.</p><p>The heating cuts out and the cold grips the house as night falls. But she is warm enough in his arms, skin to skin. Warm with him gasping her name into her shoulder, his hands guiding the roll of her hips into his, the frantic kissing.</p><p>He holds her all through the night.</p><hr/><p>When she first sees the Firefly compound, grief starts to weigh her down. Vision is silent walking behind her, the sadness hanging heavy in the air. Seeing that dark building against the sky is the final sign that they have to let go. That their weeks on the road are over.</p><p>Weeks that have brought her back to life. For so long she's lived numb, never allowing herself to get attached to anyone. But he's broken her walls down in nights where he listened and lingering kisses, holding her when she cried and staying awake with her when the nightmares wouldn't let her sleep. For every brush of their hands together some of the wall around her heart crumbles away. He scares her and enchants her and maybe it's quite possible that she's falling for him in a nameless, wonderful way. The way she swore she would never let herself fall for anyone.</p><p>The Fireflies are exactly as she remembers them. Green and yellow soldiers in their heavy helmets, weapons swinging at their sides. Vision has to vouch for her to get them past the perimeter guards, showing them his numerous bite scars. As they pass through, he reaches over to brush his fingers softly over the inside of her wrist. A single, tender touch that pierces like an arrow right through her chest.</p><p>He's taken away from her too fast. They get no goodbye, no chance to say so much as a word to each other. He's led away by white-clothed doctors in black masks, and she is left wandering the halls of the compound under the flickering artificial light, sick with fear. She doesn't trust the Fireflies, and every extra second she spends in their presence is one too many. She has to get out of her, back into the wilds where she belongs.</p><p>But she can't leave him. She stays for him, lingering in the shadows, listening when a door creaks open and voices issue out of it. Pressing herself back against the wall so they won't see her and letting their secret conversation wash over her.</p><p>"He really does have scars. The bites match bodies. He's immune. They'll find the cure, and they'll control it. Everything is going to work out thanks to him."</p><p>"Poor sod. If only he'd been lying, they wouldn't have to do that to him."</p><p>"It's for the greater good, we all know that."</p><p>"Still. Who's gonna tell the girl he came in with? His pretty little bodyguard?"</p><p>"She'll be long gone by now. Trust me. She's got the look of those crazy people who won't come out of the wild. They belong out there, not in here with civilised people."</p><p>"He looked at her like she hangs the moon. Shouldn't he at least know they're going to kill him to dig out that immunity? So he can say goodbye?"</p><p>"You are far too emotional-"</p><p>Gunshots crack the silence. Her gun is in her head and there are furious tears in her eyes and adrenaline is flying through her. The two soldiers are dead before they hit the ground, and as the sound of running footsteps surround her she reloads her gun and runs. She'll show every last one of them how uncivilised she is. They're all going to pay, and she's going to get Vision out of here and keep him safe. Let them think of her as some pretty bodyguard. She knows her way around the wilds better than any of them. They will not find her or him again.</p><p>When she finds Vision, he's alone. She killed the guard outside his room, and he's still awake, still alive, and she tugs him to his feet and says, "We're leaving."</p><p>"But they already gave me an anaesthetic," he says, and he sways on his feet, and she spits a curse and pulls him after her. "Wanda? Where are we going?"</p><p>"Listen to me," she says. "They're going to kill you. Now they know you're immune, they're going to kill you and study your dead body to figure out where the immunity comes from. So we have to get out of here, and we have to keep running."</p><p>"But...if I could <em>help</em>-"</p><p>"They don't care about immunity," she says. "They just want control of the cure. I promise you, I will try to find someone who can study you to cure the virus. I don't want to live in this world. But I don't want your life to be the price that's paid."</p><p>"You hated me," he says, only half-focusing on her. "You didn't want to help."</p><p>"Feelings change," she says, and he visibly brightens. "Do you really think I still hate you? After what we've become on the road?"</p><p>"Wanda..."</p><p>"Come on." She drags him along behind her. Out of the compound. Back into the wilds. When the anaesthetic completely takes effect and he passes out, she drags his unconscious form into the woods and sits next to him in the night, guarding him.</p><p>He wakes eventually. And they talk long through the day about what they're going to do next. Somehow, he knows how to steal a car, and she smiles for the first time in days when the engine purrs into life.</p><p>She still remembers the way back to the mountains. The house has sat abandoned for a long time, but maybe with Vision by her side she'll be strong enough to face the memories of her family.</p><p>When he isn't looking, she ghosts a nervous hand over her stomach. Maybe, in the mountains, they can make a new family.</p><p>That can be enough.</p>
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